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In 1999, a man who feared Judgement Day bought a bunker in Southern California. There was enough food to last him, his wife and his dog for ten years. When Judgment Day didn’t come, News Years Day 2000 no different than the rest, emails and phone calls poured in. They asked if he felt stupid and he said no. I don’t blame him. If I followed God, I’d be just as scared as I would be loyal. Why see the world end by His hand when I could eat canned beans with the love of my life near the Mojave Desert?

My oldest brother is an adult now, twenty-three and living with his girlfriend in New York. My second brother turns eighteen in February. He wants to move to Chicago, he wants to make video games. Almost sixteen, Dad tells me I’m a real teenager now. I ask what I was before. He says, “A child humored into thinking otherwise.” I ask what makes an adult. He says, “When you can buy your own fruit and peel it yourself.” I ask what he’d think if I dropped out of school, made low budget movies, and had lots of boyfriends. “As long as you don’t ask me for money or move back to Baltimore.”

I ask if he’d still love me with a gold plated cross resting on my chest. “As long as you keep the Jesus talk to yourself.”